Roughly 360,000 people registered blind or partially sighted in the UK are
experiencing everyday conveniences for the first time

Financial independence can be defined in many ways but essentially it’s having enough money to live without support. But what does that mean if you’re unable to get access to your money when you need it?

When cash machines – or ATMs – were first introduced in the early Seventies, it suddenly became possible to access your money all day, every day. They proved so useful they spread like wildfire and today there are approximately 67,592 of them around the UK.

According to the Payments Council, UK ATMs processed the largest number of cashmachine withdrawals of any country in the EU, with 2.9 billion transactions undertaken in 2013 alone. Like water from a tap, it’s a service we take for granted.

Their beauty is their functionality. Simply tap the keys in response to on-screen commands and take your money. It's all over in seconds – unless, that is, you are blind and partially sighted. Suddenly, using one becomes a difficult, worrying and unpredictable experience.

Barclays was the first major high-street bank to provide talking ATMs

According to the RNIB, there are 360,000 registered blind or partially sighted people in the UK, 11 per cent of whom use cash machines. However, almost two million people live with sight loss – significant impairment to vision. That’s approximately one person in 30. One in five people aged 75 and over is living with sight loss and it’s predicted that by 2020 the number of people with sight loss will rise to more than 2,250,000.

Suddenly that simple thing that we all take for granted is shut off to a significant minority. This is why, in 2011, the RNIB launched its Make Money Talk campaign, designed to prompt banks to introduce talking cash machines – a concept that instantly transforms their usability for the blind and partially sighted.

In 2011 we listened to feedback from our members and took the decision to back a campaign calling on high-street banks to install talking cash machines.

We knew manufacturers were making them with headphone jacks and that similar services were available in the US and Australia, so it was a case of pushing the idea in the UK.

Many banks simply didn’t appreciate the issues involved for people with sight issues. Some assumed that because machines had Braille keys they were usable but Braille is pointless if you can’t see the screen prompts. There were no Braille screens so people had to guess at the automated messaging.

What if it was out of order? Or saying “incorrect PIN”?

Our members said they were very anxious about using them. They either felt vulnerable or they wouldn’t bother with them at all. But people need ATMs. The bank isn’t always open, there isn’t always a branch or even a supermarket in the area. Money is important and that made the campaign symbolic.

The phone in your pocket talks without any special adaptation, why not an ATM?

So we set out to convince the banks it was important they made them part of their everyday service. It was a matter of principle.

The scenario we wanted was simple: turn up to a cash machine, put a normal set of headphones in the jack slot, insert card, follow instructions, withdraw cash, retrieve card and unplug headphones. A simple transaction like the one sighted people enjoy every day.

Before we went public our chairman wrote to all the major banks to highlight the fact that access to cash was becoming a key issue for our members. He asked what their policy was and whether they could implement talking cash machines.

Four banks were keen to have discussions and three didn’t respond. Barclays were in the group who responded immediately and they were the first to act on the request.

From there we pretty much stood back and let them get on with it. When we heard the first converted machine in action it was wonderful. The bank had included its official ‘voice of Barclays’, the same one you hear on its telephone banking. It demonstrated that Barclays respected us. They could have used a robot voice but they gave us the sound of their brand.

Barclays is a major high street bank and we’re delighted that partially sighted and blind people have access to so many talking cash machines now. They showed the industry the way forward.

It matters to me that I live as normally as possible and maintain my independence

Rosemary Thornycroft,Barclays customer

You could be forgiven for thinking the old lady standing at the service machine and wearing a pair of white headphones is grooving to the latest tunes on her iPhone.

In fact, Rosemary Thornycroft, 66, is using them to listen to prompts so she can withdraw some cash from an ATM.

Rosemary is partially sighted so she is using the talking cash machine at her local Barclays branch in Sudbury Hill, where she has lived since she got married 45 years ago.

She carefully runs her hand up the right side of the machine, finds the raised jack point, inserts the earpiece given to her by Barclays and, to start her transaction, presses the number five key, with its raised Braille dot, in the centre of the keypad.

Following simple commands she presses the keys and soon receives her cash just as anyone else would. Finished, she unplugs the headphones. Job done – but it wasn’t always so straightforward.

As a teenager, Rosemary contracted glaucoma that was subsequently corrected by operations enabling her to live normally until a decade ago when the condition began to deteriorate because of scar tissue build-up on the optic nerve.

“Before these came along,” says Rosemary waving her white stick at the talking cash machine, “I had to rely on someone else, a friend or a family member. I’d never have asked a stranger but I know blind friends who have because they live on their own.”

When Rosemary, an RNIB member, heard that Barclays was introducing talking cash machines two years ago she wanted to try one out as quickly as possible and wrote to her bank manager. As a result she found herself trying the very first one, installed in Enfield (coincidentally, the same location as the very first ATM in 1967).

“I’ve been a Barclays customer for more than 40 years so I was really pleased to find my bank was leading the way with talking cash machines,” she says. “It was quite a proud moment to be asked to unveil the first one. The fact that I can use it any time gives me real peace of mind.

“If I’m out late and I don’t have cash I feel very vulnerable, so to know I have access to one is very important. It’s actually empowering, in a sense, because it puts me in control.

“It matters to me that I live as normally as possible day-to-day, and maintain my independence."